How Live Chat Helps Prevent Shopping Cart Abandonment

Written By: admin | Date: Wed, 13 Jan 2010

Recently McAfee, the popular anti-virus company, published a paper about the causes of shopping cart abandonment. They cite research from the Eighth Annual Merchant Survey sponsored by PayPal detailing the leading causes of abandonment. The report said high shipping charges were cited by 46% and security concerns by 21%. McAfee goes on to talk about the importance of security in the sales process. Even though McAfee doesn’t cover it, when you look at the reasons for abandonment in detail, you see live chat can be a game changer in your shopping cart.

Here are the top-cited reasons people abandon shopping carts:

46% – High shipping charges

37% – Comparison shopping

36% – Lack money

27% – Want a coupon

26% – Want to shop offline

24% – Couldn’t find the preferred pay option

23% – Item not available at checkout

22% – Couldn’t find customer support

If you read our report on Live Chat Effectiveness, you’ll discover that live chat can reduce shopping cart abandonment. By placing a live chat button and utilizing BoldChat’s proactive chat feature within your shopping cart pages, you get a chance to address #1, 2, 4, 5, 6, 7, and 8. (I’m not really sure what to do about #3.) We suggest you place a proactive chat invitation on your checkout page with a timer delay based on your knowledge of your abandonment metrics. You can use our A/B testing capability to try special offers like free shipping or a discount code. You can also place an invitation on any page that displays an error code offering to help the shopper resolve the error. If nothing else, at least put a prominent live chat button in the cart and on the checkout page so your visitors can find you when they need you (#8 – 22%).